


davey, at any distance

by PenzyRome



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: (modern ish. like 2000s), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Prom, Underage Drinking, and it spans a long fucking time so. not everything happens in hs but a lot of the fic does, assume he always is unless told otherwise folks, crutchie is a girl bc i do what i want!, friends to fwb to lovers u heard it here first, idk if it's stated explicitly but, latino jack kelly, this fic is a shitshow folks., this is Jack's Big 8 Year Long Bi Crisis folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 14:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenzyRome/pseuds/PenzyRome
Summary: Davey is the only real constant Jack had for more than a decade. And yet, somehow, that wasn't always a good thing-- not for Jack's peace of mind, and certainly not for his heart.





	davey, at any distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [illinoise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinoise/gifts).



> so i dropped this a couple of months ago and then ella told me it was good so i wrote like 5k in a week and finished this. here it is. tw for serious internalized homophobia and people saying f*g. also eating disorders. also i think someone might throw up? and also underage drinking? idk folks, i'm tired. tell me if you get to the end and there's anything you think i should tag. also, this has really sort paragraphs. so. idk why i said that.  
> (also ella, let's be real, this is primarily for u. u are quite possibly the only reason i ever finish anything. i love u)

Things in first grade were so simple.

Jack had been mad at Tyler, who was his best friend, because Tyler and June had gotten married during recess, and Jack had been planning on proposing to June with the Ring Pop he’d bought at the drugstore on Thirty-Second and Fourth. So he walked up to the kid who was always reading, whos sister was a year older than them, and he stuck out his hand to shake.

“I’m Jack. Do you want to be my new best friend?”

He looked up, and Jack thought about how his latest mama would call his eyes hazel.

“Okay. I’m David.”

“Is it okay if I call you Davey?”

Davey nodded slowly, and that was that.

They were lucky. Kids at their school went all over the place, to middle schools all over the county, and yet they managed to stick together. Jack got adopted in fifth grade, by a woman named Medda who Jack just called Mama, or Miss Medda when he wanted a new game, and things were good.

He still called Davey Davey. Most people did, even most of the teachers, at that point. Davey’s mom called him David but with the sounds different, and Davey’s dad called him David or son, and Davey’s sister called him goober or loser but didn’t really mean it, and Davey’s little brother was too young to call him anything.

So they headed off to middle school, and Jack started noticing girls, and Davey started noticing books.

“And you know,” Jack said one night, his head hanging off the side of Davey’s bed, “her best friend’s real cute too, but you were too busy.”

Davey just hummed, and Jack tried to convince him of exactly how stupid it was to turn down a pretty girl because of a man named Steinbeck.

“I don’t believe in middle school relationships,” Davey said eventually. “They’ll never last.”

Jack couldn’t help but let that hurt. “What about you and me?”

Davey looked up, seeming offended. “Well, we’re different,” he said, and Jack supposed he was right.

Eighth grade hit, and it was increasingly apparent that Davey lived in a different world than Jack. When Jack went to the back-to-school dance, Davey sat at home and worked on the homework he’d been given for the classes he was already taking at the high school. Geometry, he said, was just math with shapes. Jack didn’t like it for the simple reason that it was math with shapes, and it seemed like Davey liked math with shapes more than he liked Jack.

Which wasn’t exactly acceptable, and Jack didn’t understand why he didn’t like it, but that was that.

Still, though, at the end of the year dance, Jack forced Davey to buy a fancy shirt and tie that Medda said “brought out his eyes”, and he went without a date. Jack had a date but made sure Davey had fun, encouraging him to grab a slice of pizza or dance or something like that.

“Come on,” he said, and Davey just fiddled with the wrist of his shirt.

“I don’t…”

Jack tugged on his hand. “Just come out and dance!”

Davey blinked. “With you?”

Jack’s entire mind hit a block for a second, replaying over and over the other boys saying  _ queer  _ and  _ gay  _ and  _ fag _ and for a moment, he wanted to throw up. Because he wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t, and of course Davey wasn’t, Davey was his best friend, even if he was a little odd.

He recovered quickly.

“No, with a girl, dumbass! Come on, Meghan’s cute! Meghan likes you!”

“Meghan,” Davey said slowly, and Jack’s mind kept stuttering that whole night.

High school. High school high school high school.

Davey threw himself right into it, taking band and an AP class and algebra, but the second one, (why were there two algebras? Only God knew,) and he signed up for track.

They ate lunch together, near the grassy field, for the first month or so, and then club carnival happened, and Jack was scanning the area for Davey when he saw him talking to another boy and someone Jack couldn’t quite place on what he knew. They were both smiling widely, and sitting at a table with a cup full of rainbow flags and a sign-up sheet and a poster on the front that said  _ GSA _ .

Jack blinked, not quite sure what was going on, because  _ he wasn’t he wasn’t he wasn’t  _ and next thing he knew he was throwing up in the garbage can.

“Jack!”

Jack looked up from a book he’d been reading for Davey, only to see him standing in his bedroom doorway.

Davey immediately rushed in. “Are you okay? Spot said you threw up!”

Jack frowned. “Who’s Spot?”

“He runs the GSA. Are you okay?”

Jack’s brain wasn’t quite computing, and all that stuck out were a few words in each sentence. “GSA?”

“Gay-Straight Alliance, Jack. Did something happen?” he reached out to take Jack’s hand, as he had so many times, and it had been normal so many times, but that time Jack yanked his hand away.

“What were you doing at the…” The words stuck in his throat, and something was saying that he shouldn’t have said them, but he spit them out anyways. “At the fag table?”

Davey pulled back like Jack had spit right in the palm of his hand. “What the fuck are you on?” he asked, his voice lower than usual, and deadly.

Jack wanted to puke again. “You heard me,” he heard himself say, and he didn’t know why Davey was mad, gay was bad, everybody knew that, Davey knew that because Davey wasn’t gay, and all of a sudden Davey was storming out and Jack didn’t know why.

Davey didn’t come and sit with him at lunch the next day, or the next, or the next. The only time that Davey actually acknowledged that Jack was alive for the next month was when Jack looked up from his lunch to see him walking by with a pretty red-haired girl. Their eyes met for a second before Davey looked down at the ground and tugged the girl’s hand for them to walk faster.

“Fuck,” Jack whispered to himself, and went back to his sandwich.

“Hey, Mama? Can I talk to you about something?”

Medda looked up and removed her glasses, setting them down on the coffee table where she had been looking over some kind of paperwork. “Of course, honey, sit down.” She patted the space on the couch next to her, and Jack curled up so his chin rested on top of his knees.

“Davey’s mad at me,” he said, and Medda frowned, rubbing his shoulder.

“Why?”

“No clue,” he tried, and Medda gave him a skeptical look. He sighed. “Davey thinks being gay is fine.”

Medda opened her mouth slightly, like she was trying for words. “I… Jack, honey, do you… what do you think?”

He felt his heart drop to his stomach. “Isn’t it bad?”

She closed her eyes and whispered, “I never should have allowed those boys…” Then she opened them. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about this earlier.”

His head swam. “Isn’t it bad?” he said again, and Medda shook her head rapidly.

“Jack, as long as a relationship is kind, and respectful, and they are of the right age, it can be perfectly healthy and right. Regardless of whether it’s a man and a woman, two men, two women, people of anything in between… Love is beautiful, not bad.”

“So is Davey…”

“Right? Yes. And gay? I don’t know, honey, that’s for him to figure out, and if he is, for him to tell you when he wants to.”

Jack rubbed at his eyes. “But the guys--”

“Are wrong,” Medda said firmly. “They have been raised in hateful homes, by hateful people. And love is always better than hate, Jack, believe me.”

When Jack didn’t say anything, she sighed. “I know it’s a lot, okay? I never should have let you believe that, I just assumed you knew, and that was wrong. Talk to me, if you ever need to work these things out, alright?”

Jack nodded, his mind swirling, and she kissed him on the forehead before going back to her papers.

“Davey? Davey. Davey!”

Davey turned to face Jack, bristling. “What?” he said, far too loud, and a woman driving her car gave them an odd look as she drove.

Jack had stayed at the place that he’d used to stand, to wait for Davey until Davey would walk from the band room and they’d walk to the bus stop, where Davey would wait and Jack would keep on walking home.

Davey had walked right past him, like he was invisible, and Jack had followed, pestering him until he’d finally given in.

Jack tried to speak, but the words couldn’t wrestle themselves out of his mouth for a moment. “Please talk to me?”

Davey rolled his eyes, starting to turn back towards where the bus stop lay in the distance. “I don’t think I need to,” he said, and Jack caught his arm before he could leave.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

Davey turned his head back to face him, confusion written out across his face. Jack tilted his face up towards the sky, keenly aware of the people walking past.

“I talked to my mom about it, okay? She says it’s fine, and I trust her. So you were right. And I’m sorry that I thought you were wrong.”

Davey blinked a few times. “Is this a trick?” he asked slowly, and Jack shook his head, so fast he was afraid his eyes would fall out.

“No, promise. I just miss you, okay? You’re my best friend.”

Jack could practically see the battle in Davey’s brain between wary and relieved. The relieved side won, and his face fell as he exhaled. “I missed you, too,” he said eventually, and Jack hesitantly reached forward to pat him on the arm, awkward at the least and excruciatingly uncomfortable at the most, but it was a start. Davey smiled, close-lipped, and the question hovered so close on Jack’s lips. He could see Davey prepare for it, and he could feel his brain shaping out the words, but at the last second, he stopped himself.

He wasn’t quite ready to know all that yet, and maybe that was okay with him.

Davey smiled hesitantly and turned, running towards the bus as it pulled into its stop.

Jack had to fight to really get Davey back. Not fight anyone else, necessarily, but he had to carve out the time in his day, make an effort that he’d never had to make before. But it was worth it at the end of the day, because over the rest of the school year, Davey ended up sitting with him again at lunch, bringing the red-haired girl from before with him.

Her name was Katherine, and she was gorgeous, and she was completely uninterested in Jack.

Which was valid, honestly, in his mind. He lived with himself, sure, but he didn’t like himself nearly enough to believe that someone like her would like him, especially not when they were both fourteen and stupid.

Davey and Jack spent more time at Jack’s house than before, rather than Davey’s. Jack understood why-- Davey's house was small, and the neighborhood was loud at night, and he was very familiar with the lurking monster of shame that stayed deep in your mind every time you realized that someone had it better than you.

He wished Davey didn’t have to deal with it alone, but sometimes Jack just didn’t know how to help, and it killed him.

He still wasn’t quite ready to know, and he let that sit in the very back of his brain. Davey was the default. Davey was normal. It didn’t matter what the default or the “normal” was, as long as it was Davey.

He had to fight off thoughts, sometimes, thoughts that came up when another guy wore bright pink, or when Spot Conlon walked by, or even sometimes when Davey did something. He fought off the thoughts that said  _ fag  _ over and over again, because he trusted Medda and he trusted Davey and they were right, but God, there it was again and again, the little bug eating away at whatever progress he tried to form in his head, any step he took towards never thinking it again.

He had to fight off different kinds of thoughts, too, thoughts about Michael Phelps's shoulders or the way the football guys took off their helmets or the way Davey blinked, his eyes so fucking  _ wide,  _ when he looked up from a book. Or the way Davey pulled at the necklines of his shirts when it was hot outside, or the way Davey looked whenever he won a race.

He had to fight off a lot of thoughts about Davey, honestly.

But that stuff was normal. All guys dealt with it, it was just how the world worked. They were teenagers. Teenagers thought weird shit all the time, and as long as he fought it off, he got to be normal.

What was normal? God, he didn't know anymore.

Sophomore year came along, and Jack took more advanced art classes, learning stuff about the history and the technique, not just about what felt right and what looked good.

Davey took more fancy literature classes, and kept talking about math that made Jack’s head spin, and they managed to bond over Leonardo da Vinci, until Davey mentioned, off hand, that he was gay, and the conversation stopped in its tracks.

Sophmore year was better. Things were better. Still not perfect, still not simple. But Davey won races and Jack painted and they both read, with varying levels of success.

(“Just think about the  _ concept,”  _ Davey implored one night, sitting cross-legged on Jack’s bed and holding  The Great Gatsby in his hands.

“Dave,” Jack said, rubbing his temples, “the concept makes my head hurt.”)

He did like certain books, though:  Walden and collections of myths and poems. Poems were art in words, and he appreciated that. He appreciated the way he could almost see the colors and hear the sounds. He also appreciated Walt Whitman, but he changed the subject very quickly every time Davey brought him up.

And then junior year. Junior year, Davey traveled all across the state, competing in track competitions all over the place, and Jack made it to as many as he could.

Jack had two girlfriends that first semester: Buttons Davenport and Rafaela Gutiérrez. Buttons broke up with him after a week, and Rafaela broke up with him after a month to date Buttons.

Davey cackled at that. “You see, this is why I don’t date,” he said through bouts of laughter.

Jack wrinkled his nose at him. “Maybe you don’t date just ‘cause you can’t find somebody to date.”

Davey shrugged one shoulder. “Who’s to say?”

Winter break, Esther and Mayer spent five days a few hours away with Davey’s cousin, who had just given birth.

Sarah stayed with Katherine, and Les stayed over at a friend’s house.

Davey was allowed to stay home on multiple conditions, one being that he could only invite over Jack.

So there they sat, on the couch that was also Davey’s bed, watching some free show on Davey’s shitty laptop.

The older they got, the more Jack noticed how small the Jacobs’ house really was.

They had five rooms-- a tiny kitchen, with a dinner table crammed in, a bedroom about the size of Jack’s that Esther and Mayer slept in, a cramped study that barely could have fit a desk and chair, but instead barely fit Sarah’s bed, the living room, with a couch that became Davey’s bed and a reclining chair that became Les’s, and a bathroom.

It was full of people and full of love, and it had felt so big in the past, with the happy family Jack had yearned for. But as they got taller and older and Davey could barely even stretch out on his couch-bed, it felt sad when they sat there, all alone.

Jack snapped out of whatever trance he had gone into when he caught Davey looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Jack pulled out the one earbud he had been using to hear, since they hadn’t wanted to battle with Davey’s neighbors’ guard dogs for who could be the noisiest.

“What?” Jack asked, and Davey all of a sudden looked guilty, like he had been caught robbing a bank. “Why’re ya staring me down?”

Davey shrugged one shoulder, adapting quickly. “Wondering why all those girls like your ugly mug,” he said, and Jack faked a gasp.

“How dare you, Jacobs? You  _ wish  _ you could get with me.”

Davey looked thoroughly unimpressed. “Uh-huh. Jack Kelly, sixteen year-old Casanova.”

“Almost seventeen,” Jack insisted, and Davey rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, you treasure that January birthday until all of a sudden it means you’re the one graying first.”

Jack paused the show, and Davey, seemingly on the exact same wavelength, shut the computer and set it on the ground so they could focus on the brewing war at hand.

Jack always loved that about Davey-- he didn’t need a show, or music, or a video, or anything. He was fascinating, and fun, just on his own.

“Dave, you Taurus bastard,” Jack started, taking a moment to gather his words, “if anyone currently in this house grays first, it’s you.”

Davey raised his eyebrows skeptically, and Jack took the bait, counting off his evidence on his fingers. “Your dad’s already basically bald, you stress all the time, you don’t take care of yourself.”

Jack couldn’t help but smile when Davey snorted. “Mr. I Drank Paint Water is telling me I don’t take care of myself?”

“Okay, fine, we both need to talk to the school counselor.”

The corner of Davey’s mouth tipped up, and Jack pushed away the thought about his lips. “See you there, Kelly.”

And then the thought came back again, and next thing he knew the words tripped out. “Ever kissed a girl?”

Davey looked taken aback, and slowly his expression faded into indifference. “Can’t say I have, no.”

Jack didn’t think he said anything, just kind of hummed. “And you…”

_ And you’re straight. As straight as me. I’m straight. I’m normal. What is normal why isn’t not straight normal Rafaela is normal and Rafaela is bi and I’m  _ normal  _ I’m straight I swear I am. _

Davey frowned, some hidden ball of tension and nerves crowding behind his eyes. “And I?” he asked, fear evident in his eyes.

And God, Jack never wanted that. He never wanted Davey to be scared. He just wanted him to be happy, because he was his best friend, and  _ NOTHING MORE-- _

He kissed him.

It took him a second to realize, a second before it dawned on him that he was kissing Davey and his hand was pressed into the couch next to Davey’s knee to balance himself and Davey wasn’t kissing him back and why would he?

Jack pulled away and found Davey’s eyes wide open, shock evident in them. “What… was that?”

“Practice?” he offered, so tentatively that he couldn’t even convince himself. He felt his heart bungee jump down to his stomach and up into his throat and back down again as Davey studied him, something Jack either hadn’t seen or hadn’t ever noticed written across his face, written in the tension in his arms, written all over him in an uneven scrawl of the unknown.

“Okay,” Davey said eventually, his voice so quiet Jack could barely hear it. “Okay.”

Davey kissed him that time, and Jack hadn’t been sure what he had expected, but it was almost certainly better than he thought it would be.

Davey didn’t kiss him like he was kissing a girl. He wasn’t gentle, or delicate, or any of the things that Jack had thought Davey would kiss a girl like. It was better than that. Or just different? Better, Jack thought. Davey kissing him was better than Davey kissing a girl, or another boy.

_ Another  _ boy.

And all of a sudden, the sick, nervous feeling rose up in Jack’s stomach again, because he was kissing  _ Davey.  _ He was kissing his best friend, who was a guy, and he couldn’t kiss a guy, because he wasn’t gay, he wasn’t bi, he was straight straight straight straight straight and it wasn’t right if he wasn’t straight.

He pulled back suddenly, and Davey fell forward a little, his hand still in the air, for a brief moment, where it had been resting on Jack’s cheek. Immediately, Davey snatched his hand back, and looked at Jack with the same unreadable expression as before. 

Jack looked down at his lap. “Sorry.”

He was only dimly aware of everything else that was happening-- the creak of the couch, the sound of the dogs barking and music thrumming and off in the distance, police sirens. He looked back up when the feeling of Davey’s eyes boring into his head became too much to bear, and Davey blinked, like he hadn’t been expecting it.

“You started it,” Davey said, and Jack put his head in one of his hands.

“I know. Fuck, I’m sorry. You know I’m--”

“Straight, I know. I thought you were just… experimenting.”

“Experimenting?”

“Y’know. How straight guys try shit with other guys. See what the fuss is about. I figured you were doing that.”

Jack blinked several times, unable to tell if the nonchalance Davey was portraying was fake or not.

“And you were…” Jack’s voice died out, and he had to clear his throat. “You were okay with that?”

Davey choked out a little cough-laugh. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

_ Because because because because because… _

Jack just managed a shrug.

Davey nodded, slowly, and Jack felt himself nodding along. “Okay then,” Davey said, with a slight smile.

“Okay,” Jack repeated, and leaned forward to kiss him again.

(Davey really did kiss like he’d kissed a guy before, but that was ridiculous. Or maybe made sense, if he’d… experimented. Because there wasn’t anything beyond that. Davey was straight, Jack was straight, it was an experiment, and it was nothing else.)

(If it was something else, Jack’s heart wouldn’t have been able to handle it. His heart would have spun around and fallen right off the edge, taking his brain with it, and they would fall right into Davey’s hands, and  _ God,  _ Jack was already so close to being tossed around by fate. He couldn’t handle his heart and brain and soul and ability to be okay in the morning tossed into the hands of the one person who could ruin it all.)

Jack woke up, in the morning, laying across the couch, with Davey curled into a little ball on the recliner. 

He closed his eyes and thought about the evening-- kissing Davey, Davey kissing him, the pulling apart after God knew how long and Davey nodding slowly before he headed off to get blankets and glasses of water and curled up on the chair and fell asleep.

He thoughts about laying on the couch, trying to sleep, watching as Davey twitched in his sleep, breathing in and out softly.

Jack sat up, ignoring the creaking of the couch, and looked over at Davey, his curls pressed to one side where his face had pressed against the fabric of the chair.

He sighed heavily and dragged one hand down his face, stopping for a moment on his lips before his fingers fell down, and he clasped his hands together, wringing them to remind himself that he was there, in the world, that he was real, and that he truly did exist.

Davey didn’t mention it for the whole rest of break, and they fell into their usual routine. Nothing changed, not visibly. Under the surface, though, Jack watched Davey a little closer when he laughed. He felt like taking notes whenever Davey’s eyes lit up and he went into a description of the most recent book he had read.

Katherine noticed it one day and mentioned it to Jack as they walked together to an AP class she had convinced him to take, saying it was important to learn about their effect on the world around them.

“Is something up with you and Davey?”

He looked abruptly at her, trying to decipher the way she looked at him, seeming curious and friendly but maybe thinking about more.

“No,” he said simply, and she just shrugged.

“Just asking.”

He ran his fingers along the inside seam of his hoodie pocket. He was there. He was real. He existed beyond being a little game piece on some massive, sprawling board. He existed beyond questions and no answers. He was there, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be, or if he just wanted to float away.

Medda had made Jack promise three times to not throw a party. In his mind, he couldn’t understand how she ever thought he would. He was too grateful for the situation he was in to ever mess it up, and throwing an unauthorized party definitely fit messing it up.

She allowed him to invite Davey and Kath over, just the two of them, and so he did, and they spent the whole evening laughing over the promposals that were starting to pop up and worrying about college and eating the spaghetti that Medda had left behind.

Katherine fell asleep around midnight, an empty bowl of ice cream about to fall off her lap, and Davey and Jack sat outside on the porch, their breath coming out in little white puffs against the chilly winter night.

Jack didn’t know why he did it, but one second they were talking about Davey’s job down at the pizza place and Davey’s volunteer gig at the animal shelter because he wanted to give back but he also needs money and all of a sudden Jack blurted, “We kissed.”

Davey blinked, taken aback. “Yes,” he said after a second, “that’s correct.”

“It was…” Jack trailed off.

_ Good. Fun? Interesting? Surprising. Different. Better? Different. Good? _

“Not what I expected.”

Davey barked out a laugh, and it seemed to echo in the cold, silent air.

“That’s a new one,” Davey said eventually, still smiling.

Jack didn’t ask what he means by that-- if it meant that Davey had kissed other guys, kissed other people, but he hadn’t kissed other girls because he said so, so who else would he kiss?

“It was better than I thought it’d be.”

Davey turned his head to face Jack when he said that. “Oh,” he said simply, his eyebrows furrowing as if Jack was a puzzle he just couldn’t figure out.

The chairs that they were sitting in, Jack only then realized, were actually quite uncomfortable. The cushions were thin enough that they could feel the metal bars underneath, and the metal of the armrests and back was colder than anything else in that moment.

They sat in silence, Jack occasionally catching Davey looking towards him, until finally they both stood up to go inside.

Jack kissed Davey right before the door was open, right when Davey’s hand was on the doorknob.

Davey inhaled sharply, something that had either never happened when Jack had kissed him the first time or that Jack just had missed in the rush of things.

Jack closed his eyes tightly, like if he couldn’t see anything he could imagine that Davey was Kayla Clarks or Jamie Mendez. 

And then he felt Davey’s hand, cold from the air and the doorknob, drift down to rest between Jack’s sweatshirt and his pajama pants, right on his hip, and Jack jumped, his eyes flying open, and it was Davey, with short hair and thinner lips and nothing to prove.

Jack’s breath caught in his throat.

“I need the bathroom,” he managed, and scrambled inside the house.

By the time he came back, Davey was curled up on the couch, reading something off Medda's shelf and wrapped up in a blanket.

They didn’t make eye contact for the rest of the night, and Jack went to sleep with his blankets over his head so he didn’t have to see the world around him, or Davey sleeping just three feet away.

When he woke up, the whole house smelled like vanilla.

He turned over and sat up slowly, peered over the back of the couch to see Davey bustling around in the kitchen. Katherine was sitting at the barstool and reading the paper, and Jack's heart just about ached at how lucky he was to have them.

(He forcibly pushed out the thought of Davey's hand, cold and burning hot at the same time, resting on his hip.)

He cleared his throat, and Davey turned towards him, whisk in hand. "Morning, sunshine!"

"Yeah, yeah." He walked over and looked over Davey's shoulder at his bowl's contents.

"We're eating… cookie dough? For breakfast?"

"Dann right! Eggless, too," Davey said, and Katherine sighed.

"You ever make anything normal?"

Davey smiled widely at her, dimples on full display. "Kitty, you know me too well to believe that."

Jack was furious, truly, that his two best friends in the entire world could look gorgeous in the morning.

A few minutes later, Katherine folded up the paper and set it down. "My father--" when she pulled out  _ father,  _ Jack knew Pulitzer had been a shit recently-- "wants me home by noon. Later, dorks."

Davey held out a baggie of cookie dough for her. "Breakfast."

Katherine pursed her lips, and Davey sighed. "C'mon, please?"

She took it, and Jack felt what he sometimes felt with the two of them-- the unspoken Nearly-Siblings Best Friend Bond. The three of them were best friends, sure, but Davey and Katherine were something else entirely.

(It was a good thing, really, that Jack didn't have the N-SBFB with Davey. Nearly-Siblings didn't kiss each other, did they?)

(Fuck, he still hadn't decided how he felt about that whole thing.)

Katherine left in the VW Bug Davey and Jack were both jealous of, and they lounged around for a bit. They watched TV, ate Davey's stupid delicious eggless cookie dough, and debated how they were going to spend the remaining five hours before Medda got home.

When Jack brought up rewatching Davey's terribly filmed bar mitzvah, Davey put his foot down.

"Actually, we've gotta talk."

Jack swallowed hard, fixed his eyes anywhere but the cluster of freckles near the corner of Davey's mouth.

"Yeah?"

Davey leaned into the back of the couch, pulling one foot up underneath his thigh. "You kissed me," he said, staring at the blank TV screen. "Then you bolted."

Jack sighed, and Davey looked towards him. "What's going on?"

He tried to fake a laugh. "What's that mean?"

Davey rubbed at the space between his eye and his cheekbone. (Davey had kind of perfect cheekbones, high and sharp and  _ not  _ what Jack needed to focus on.) "I can't just sit here confused and wait three weeks until the next time you decide to jump me. 'Cause right now, that's what this is."

Jack pursed his lips, and Davey pushed forward.

"I don't know what you want here. If you wanna just make out until you freak once a month, fine, but I gotta know that that's what you're after."

He said all that like Jack knew what he himself wanted, Jesus.

"I…" he trailed off, drumming his fingers on his knee.

(Davey kissing him, Davey's hands, soft and warm, tracing along his jaw. Davey smiling at him, Davey looking so shocked and happy when Jack read some stupidly long book Davey liked.)

(Jack waking up during Geometry sophomore year from a dream about laughing when Davey rolled on top of him in bed and kissed him, long and sweet.)

"I don't want it to be once a month."

Davey's face was a carefully crafted mask, and Jack tried to meet his eyes, but he couldn't quite bring himself to.

"So…" Davey started, clearly intending to lead Jack into continuing.

"So it can be… frequent. If you want."

Davey blinked at him. "No strings attached?"

"No strings," Jack confirmed. "And I won't chicken out. As much."

Davey tilted his head, and Jack stared at his collarbone while Davey ruminated the whole thing.

"Just us? We make out and shit, and nothing else has to happen? Just… for fun?" He had a carefully guarded look to him, and Jack thought about, for a second, taking his hand.

Instead, "Yeah. Just fun."

Davey stood still, before he nodded, slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"Cool," Jack said, relieved even though he didn't know why.

(His couch wasn't particularly comfortable, and it poked his back in a weird way. But wow, it was a price he would have to pay.)

He sighed, his Blackberry sandwiched between his jaw and his shoulder while he shuffled through concealers at the drugstore.

"This is your damn fault," he hissed to his phone. "You know Medda'll have my skin if she sees me like this."

Davey cackled, and Jack could  _ hear  _ him grinning. "Pretty dramatic attitude change from the moment of, hm?"

"Shut up. I hate you."

"Come over after school tomorrow? Watch a movie?"

Both offers were essentially code that needed very little breaking.

Jack pretended to be reluctant. "I  _ guess." _

Again, he could hear Davey's grin go from his teasing smile to the Cat With The Canary smile.

"Buy one of the big containers of that shit," Davey said, and promptly hung up.

"Bastard," Jack said to the air, and begrudgingly went to spend 30 dollars on concealer. 

The last three months of junior year went by too quickly, and Jack thought multiple times that Davey might snap on the spot. There were a few times where Davey would get a migraine so bad he'd go home, and Jack would ride the bus over after school.

(They didn't kiss those times, just watched movies with the volume down and subtitles on. Jack tucked his arm around Davey, sometimes, and Davey would set his head against Jack's chest.)

They became busy so fast, and Jack couldn't help but be surprised at just how little time they spent together doing anything other than studying. They camped out in Katherine's painfully massive house, raiding the pantry and all quizzing each other on AP terms. Then, when it got a little too miserable, they all threw themselves into her pool and horsed around until they were happy again.

(It was completely understandable that he felt more about Davey without a shirt than Katherine without one. Katherine was like his weird cousin. Feeling anything about her would have been gross.)

Davey ran for track, the school team taking state, and Jack and Katherine skipped all their other priorities to watch Davey run like the clouds were carrying him, looking truly free for maybe the first and only time.

Junior prom came and went. None of them went to the actual thing, but Jack dragged Davey and Katherine to an after party filled with cheap beer and shitty music.

"Here," Jack said, handing Davey a drink that he cracked open and drank easily.

(The things that David Jacobs did so perfectly that Jack wondered if he'd had experience.)

Davey winced. "That's fucking disgusting."

Jack shrugged. "Yeah, never said it was classy." Davey smile-grimaced and wiped his mouth. "C'mon, let's dance."

The corners of Davey’s lips teased up. “What, together?”  
(No, no, no, no, Jack could kiss Davey and trace his fingers over Davey’s collarbone and sit with their knees pressed together on the couch. That was fine, that was okay, but dancing was _wrong,_ dancing was so unquestionably romantic that Jack forgot how to breathe, imagining Davey’s hand in his, leading him through some stupid fancy dance. No, no, no, _no.)_

“In like a group way, dumbass. You’ve been to parties before, right?”

Davey rolled his eyes in an unbearably affectionate way, but he still followed Jack into the group, and Jack watched him out of the corner of his eye the whole time.

That was a perfectly sensible decision, because as soon as he turned his head to look for Katherine, Davey had vanished.

“Christ,” he said, and a girl rolling by in a wheelchair stopped and squinted at him.

“Sorry?”

He waved one hand. “Not you. My friend went…” He made a little  _ poof  _ with his fingers, and she tilted her head, shaking the massive bun of curly hair she’d precariously set up on her head.

“The cute one? Freckles, really tall?”

Jack sighed. “Yeah, that’d be him.”

She tapped pale blue fingernails on her armrest. “I think I saw him go upstairs. Maybe to hurl? I dunno.” She shrugged. “Tell him I say hi. Name’s Charlie.”

Jack nodded and raised a hand to wave goodbye, heading to the stairs.

There were a few options: throwing up, like Charlie had thought, needing some air, or--

“Hi,” Davey said, as soon as Jack got to the top of the stairs.

Jack crossed his arms. “I got worried, dickhead.”

Davey smiled widely. “You worried?” he asked, and Jack scowled him. Davey held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, I’m sorry. Forgive or I’ll be distraught with guilt my whole life.”

“Can’t have that, can we?” Jack said dryly, and Davey laughed a little. “So…” He spread his arms out, indicating the poorly decorated second floor. “Why?”

Davey looked down the stairs, then back at Jack. “Guest bedroom’s right behind you.”

(Sneaking around wasn’t romantic. It could be friends-who-kiss as easy as pie.)

Jack huffed. “Really?”

Davey didn’t smirk. He never did. Jack thought, sometimes, that his face was incapable of looking smug. He just shrugged a little, tipped his head just right, and grinned brightly when Jack rolled his eyes.

“This is stupid,” Jack said, a last, weak protest so he could say that he tried.

“But it’s fun.” Davey raised his eyebrows, and Jack smiled, just a little.

“Sure, whatever.”

“Sure, whatever,” Davey said, lowering his voice a little, but he still grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him into the room.

When Jack kissed girls, it was careful. Medda had been his first real mom, and she’d practically painted  _ be a gentleman!  _ on the inside of his head. It was all very cautious  _ will she like this  _ or  _ is this the right time  _ or  _ will she be happy if. _

With Davey, it was a competition. What the competition was for, he didn’t know, but he knew Davey was winning.

(Which he wasn’t mad about, per say. It was actually oddly fun. There were a whole lot of things that he was more worried about than that.)

Part of it was the intent of it all-- Davey wasn’t girlfriend material, obviously. Jack wasn’t trying to impress him with how kind and polite and gentlemanly he was. He was just trying to have fun, to distract himself from the massive world ahead of him. He was just trying to have fun. He was just trying to have fun. He was just trying to have fun.

He was just trying to have fun.

His hands pressed against Davey’s back. Davey kissing down his neck. Jack, laying there on a stranger’s bed, because with a party one floor below, he’d wanted to kiss his best friend. Davey, Davey, Davey. (Fun, fun, fun.)

They went on for a while like that, lazy until it was feverish and fast until it was lazy and sweet and slow all over again. Over and over, in cycles. Like they’d never get tired of it.

Davey was just so  _ pretty. _ Unbearably, annoyingly, incredibly pretty.

Three things happened, with barely a second between any of them.

Jack ran his thumb against Davey’s side under his t-shirt.

Davey laughed against Jack’s jaw. “Tickles.”

The door opened, and Katherine said, “What the  _ fuck?” _

“Jesus Christ,” Davey muttered, and Jack couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Davey rolled off of Jack and sat cross-legged on the bed while Jack sat up and tugged his own shirt down to meet his jeans.

Then he saw Katherine’s face, and he nearly threw up.

She looked confused, more than anything. Because, Jack knew, Friends Who Kiss looked like a lot of things other than that.

Things Jack didn’t want to be. Things Jack couldn’t be.

He was many things, he did many things. But he didn’t  _ like  _ David Jacobs. He certainly wasn’t in love with him.

He was just trying to have fun. Kisses could mean as little as that. And they could mean more, but they didn’t. They didn’t.

Davey looked over at him, and must have seen something, because he spoke for him.

“This isn’t serious. Just…”

Katherine’s mouth fell a little further open. “My best friends are friends with benefits.”

“No!” Jack objected, and Davey turned to him, confused.

Oh god, they were all confused. All three of them, because Jack really was, too.

“What are we, then?”

Jack blinked, searching for the words. “Friends? Best friends? Who kiss, in a fun, casual kind of way?”

Davey and Katherine stared at him, and Katherine eventually said, “That’s… f-w-b.”

He wondered if she didn’t want to say the real words. He knew he didn’t. So she was confined to her neat little eff-double-you-bee. Spoken, like always, crisp, clean, neat.

The real thing was anything but neat. Funny, how words worked.

“Ah,” Jack said. “Yeah, that seems right.”

Davey, angel on Earth that he was, explained the whole thing to Katherine during a N-SBFB Movie Night. Jack was honestly relieved he didn’t have to explain any of it-- the less explaining he had to do for other people, the less thinking he had to do for himself.

The more he thought, the more confusing it became, a kind of puzzle where the pieces kept changing, and the shapes kept shifting like water in his fingers.

Junior year drew to a close, and then it closed. PSATs taken, panic attacks had, Xanaxs dry-swallowed.

In the past, their summers had been a mix between rampaging the surrounding area with everything they were worth and working with a lot less of what they were worth.

(Also, invading the animal shelter Davey worked at and snuggling with animals for hours on end until Davey set out food and there was a stampede-- the animals towards their dishes and Jack and Katherine towards their takeout.)

The summer before senior year, though, they just stressed until they went to sleep, and then they woke up and ate a stressful breakfast and stressed some more.

“I can’t apply early decision,” Davey said, pointing his legs toward the ceiling. “I need to see the financial aid first.”

“Then do early action,” Jack said, for what felt like the fifteenth time, staring at a crack in the ceiling, staring anywhere but Davey’s sharp profile.

Davey groaned. “But I want them to like me, Jackie, I want these strangers to think I’m the shit! That I’m ballsy!”

“You don’t have the  _ money  _ for ballsy. Neither of us do.”

(Jack would have had Ballsy Money if it had not been for Medda’s incurable kindness and love. Charlie From The Party was about three days away from being Jack’s official adopted sister, which was rad, but also meant two children Medda would have to pay for instead of one.)

(Seriously though, Charlie was so fucking cool. How many people could say they met their sister at a party. She was like a girl-group member, except tone-deaf and sarcastic.)

Katherine spoke up from her bean bag. “For the last time, the Pulitzer Scholarship Fund is still open. It’s very lucrative and exclusive.”

They sighed in unison, and she nodded. “Message received.”

She was the sweetest person on Earth, honestly, but no one ever understood that special brand of shame until they had experienced it themselves.

“UC is fucking me over,” she said after a moment of silence. “I gotta get my applications in by November just for regular.”

“Bastards,” Davey said, and Katherine groaned.

“I should go live in the mountains with a hot farmer and her goats.”

The room went suddenly still, like even the fan and the vents and the pipes and the world had chosen to go silent.

“Her?” Davey asked, quiet as could be.

“Yeah,” Katherine said, and didn’t elaborate.

Jack glanced to the side just in time to see Davey blink.

“Okay,” he said, and Jack nodded slowly.

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Katherine mimicked, but Jack could hear the twist in her voice, so he didn’t look over for a few minutes.

When he did, she was back at her computer, looking at essay prompts, but she looked up and smiled at him. He smiled back, and despite all the stress, he thought they might be okay.

Besides stress and Katherine coming out, the summer had a few other memorable things.

Davey had to sneak out of Jack’s window with his shirt on backwards while Jack tried to find his own shirt in the first place. (It was, in fact, in the rose bushes below his window. Neither of them knew how or why.)

Katherine won the library record for most crumpled-up first drafts. They took her picture and pinned it up on the corkboard next to Davey’s. (Most dog-eared pages.)

Charlie accidentally broke three vases by talking with her hands a little too violently.

Jack discovered how to tie his shoelaces so that the loops of the bow ended up both on top of the knot. Davey made fun of him for three weeks for not knowing.

And then there was the last day of summer.

Katherine leaned back onto her piled-up towel, red hair tied up into two little buns on her head. “Good farewell to freedom?” she asked, and Jack nodded, still sitting up, his legs dangling into the Pulitzer’s pool.

“Great one.” It had been; the trio of them, plus Charlie, had spent the day hanging out at Katherine’s entirely empty house, eating animal crackers and floating on pool noodles. Davey had driven a begrudging Charlie home when her leg started spasming, saying that he needed to pack for school anyways.

So it was just Katherine and Jack, watching the setting sun’s reflection in candy-blue water.

They sat like that for a while before Katherine pulled her legs out of the water, sitting with her chin on one of her knees. Jack waited for her to say what she needed to, and eventually:

“Are you and Davey still fucking?”

Jack coughed like she had buried her fist right in his stomach, feeling his head reel.

She looked at him, concerned. “Jack, I’m not accusing you of anything.”

He wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t--

“I know,” he said, more to himself than her. “I know, I know. It’s just.” He ran an unsteady hand through his still-damp hair, catching a few tangles.

“We’ve never…” Katherine watched him carefully as he floundered. “We haven’t…”

“Had sex?” she offered, bluntly, and he opened his mouth for a moment before he closed it quickly. “Sorry, did I…”

“I’m not gay. I’m not.”

Her eyes softened, and she took his hand. “You know it’d be okay if you were?”

He didn’t respond, and she exhaled softly, rubbing her thumb against his hand.

There was a beat of silence, then, “Does he know? That you aren’t?”

“Course he does,” Jack said, feeling like his mind was coated in cotton. “He is.”

He didn’t look at her face. He didn’t want to know whatever her eyes would reveal. They breathed together, along with the humming bugs and rustling trees, and she sighed. “You know how I lost all that weight sophomore year?”

He finally dared to look at her, but she was staring into the distance. “Soccer, right? Your dad signed you up?”

“I had an ED.” She pursed her lips. “Have? I dunno if you get rid of it completely.”

He swallowed hard. “Kathy…”

She managed a quiet laugh. “I’m okay now. Saw a therapist and all that.”

“Did your dad…” he trailed off, afraid of how he was planning on completing that.

She shook her head. “Davey. He found me in the girl’s room losing my lunch. Got me to the school counselor, took me to therapy once a week, made sure my dad never found out. We didn’t know what he’d do. Didn’t wanna find out.” Her sentences got shorter, and she closed her eyes to take a deep breath. Her lips eventually drifted into a smile.

“He was so good about it. Made sure I ate lunch, walked me to my next class every time. Taught me all about nutrition and that shit. And he always said it was no problem, that I was helping him with home ec.”

“He never makes you feel like a burden,” Jack filled in, and she nodded.

“And I needed it, I really did.” Her brow furrowed. “I wanna be independent. I don’t wanna need help, but I do. I did. And he gave it, without asking for anything, ever.”

Jack squeezed her hand, and she gave him a little smile.

“I look at me now, and I’m better. I know I am. Would’ve hated me for looking like this a while ago, but I’m better. I’m the way I’m supposed to be. Like…” She poked her side, near her ribcage. “There’s some stuff there, but then there’s bones. That’s where my body’s supposed to go, pretty much. Is it bigger? Sure. Whatever. Who gives a fuck?”

Jack laughed at that, and she grinned. “You get it?”

“Is it okay if I don’t?”

She nudged him with her shoulder. “Yeah. You will.”

Senior year was kind of a fucking mess.

Davey was busy constantly, writing essays and finalizing plans and doing so much  _ homework  _ and working and running and basically doing everything except spending time with Jack.

Which made sense, Jack understood, only he was waking up from nightmares where he was screaming Davey’s name into the abyss and nothing was coming back. Waking up from nightmares about Davey’s face screwing up, confused, as Jack confessed truths he couldn’t hear. Waking up from dreams about Davey kissing him, all kinds of kisses. Soft kisses, angry kisses, kisses where Jack could see his face in the pale morning light and kisses where they were drenched in midnight but Jack still knew it was him.

They didn’t kiss as much for months. They were occupied, of course. (And sometimes, when they did, Davey would look like he did in those dreams. Dreams where Jack loved Davey, which he didn’t, he didn’t, he didn’t.)

He found himself pulling back sometimes, even when they did. Davey looked worried whenever he did, but he always just shrugged and went back to whatever they were doing before. He was so good like that, so kind. So understanding, even when he didn’t understand.

There had always been something a little wrong, a little inconsistency in their story. Jack still didn’t know what it was, but even still, it was digging away at his brain, picking at the only parts that knew a single thing.

A few weeks before Halloween, Davey looked over at him from a sheet of calculus. “You okay?”

Jack mustered up a smile, for him. “Yeah.”

Davey nodded, pushing his hair away from his eyes and refocusing, biting at his bottom lip as he scribbled and erased formulas and equations. God, he was pretty, like sunshine and moonlight wrapped into one.

He looked back down at his paper. Tantalus. Cursed to reach out for the things he desired most, only for them to draw away. Jack tapped his pencil on his thigh, thinking about the punishment. It left Tantalus thirsty, left him hungry, the cure always out of reach. But he had fed the gods, they hadn’t been hungry. They had simply been disgusted by what they ate.

Things would feel different for Tantalus, Jack thought, if he could reach the fruit. If it didn’t withdraw. If he could grab what he wanted and bring it close to him and take a bite. And things would be different if, only then, it rotted in his mouth, falling to pieces between his fingers. The water that he could cup in his hands so easily, bring to his lips, would turn bitter and burning and repulsive at the last second.

He would be sustained. But still, he would search.

Jack could see himself scribbling on his paper until the pencil ripped it in half, but he didn’t stop.

He would search and search for an apple that wouldn’t turn to mush as he bit into it. He would wait for the day when he would have what he wanted and it  _ wouldn’t  _ turn his insides out.

He heard Davey gasp, and when he looked up, there he was, soft and concerned, prying the pencil out of Jack’s shaking hands. “Jackie? Jack, what’s wrong?”

Jack looked down at the hole pierced all the way through his notebook, and then he fell apart, sobbing into Davey’s arms.

A week later, he clicked his teeth together and made a decision.

It had been a calm day, all things considered. Lowkey classes, minimal homework. Davey had come over, and they’d studied for an upcoming history test before spending five minutes on a fruitless attempt to make out on the armchair in the corner of Jack’s room.

“This is stupid,” Davey announced, still perched on Jack’s lap despite his previous statement. “I hate myself more every second this goes on.”

Jack raised one eyebrow. “Then stop?”

Davey rolled his eyes. “I don’t hate myself  _ that  _ much.”

Ten more minutes, and then Jack brushed his hand over that one tickly spot on Davey’s ribs. Davey literally shrieked with a giggle and buried his head into Jack’s shoulder, fighting off laughter until he finally pulled away, looking at Jack with that awful, stupid, devastatingly sweet grin.

“You’re an evil monster, y’know?”

Jack stared at him, and Davey stared back, even and challenging and pretty,  _ so  _ pretty.

Jack stared, bewildered and wondering and so, so…

“I don’t want to do this.”

Davey blinked. “Oh. Okay.”

“Anymore. Like… never.”

Silence, then, again, “Oh. Okay.”

Davey slid off his lap, quiet and pursing his lips. “I, uh. I should go, look at the time.”

Jack felt himself get torn in two. “Davey, no, I don’t--”

Davey smiled, brief and reassuring. “It’s okay, Jack. Really.”

He grabbed his backpack on the way out of Jack’s room, and was gone faster than Jack could possibly blink. He just stared at the closed door and gasped for air, even though there was more than enough now that Davey was gone.

Charlie knocked on the door, and when he didn’t answer, she opened it slowly, sitting in the doorway. “Davey left.”

“I know,” Jack said roughly. “Think I don’t?”

Charlie frowned, her eyebrows furrowing. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah. I dunno. Can you leave?”

Charlie debated it for a second, then rolled further into his room. “Nah. Wanna watch  _ 9 to 5 _ ?”

Jack sighed. “You gotta get cheese popcorn.”

She smiled and patted his knee. “I’ll get your gross ass popcorn. Be at the TV in three minutes or you miss the DVD trailers.”

Things kept happening.

Davey still came over, of course. They were still best friends. It was just a given, after so long of it.

But there were boundaries, and rules that they didn’t say out loud. Jack didn’t put his arm around Davey’s shoulder like before. Davey didn’t lean into Jack during movie nights like before. Jack didn’t drag Davey behind the bleachers after his track meets like before. In short, they weren’t like they were before.

He’d known that the whole thing would happen as soon as he’d started down the road. Probably before that. He’d known that it would end badly.

But Tantalus had reached the fruits, and he’d kept eating them, no matter how often they rotted.

Davey and Katherine, as predicted, were college admission stars. They got big old letters filled with big old announcements, and Jack was over the moon every time. To his own credit, he got his own big old letters-- slightly less fancy, but still telling him that people thought he was worth some salt.

It was fucked up, the way they all wanted a bunch of old men to deem them deserving of a future.

Still, though, they all lapped it up, and they all screamed with each other when they saw the shirts they wore on The Grand Decision-Making Day.

Then, everyone swung straight from college fever into prom fever, and Jack got a vaguely ill feeling in his stomach that lasted the whole rest of the school year.

Their school did senior prom two weeks before school got out. Some people said that it was a last goodbye. Some people said that they didn’t want to sell junior and senior tickets at the same time. Regardless of the reason, as soon as Jack had finished choosing where to spend the next four years of his life, he had to choose what girl he was supposed to buy flowery crap and make feel like a princess. And then do vulgar things with.

Prom was a paradox fest, and Jack kind of hated the entire thing.

Nevertheless, he did it. He asked out Hildy From The Cheer Team, and she said yes, and they color coordinated. They shared a limo with Katherine and Davey, who were going as friends and still looked more like a pair than Jack and Hildy.

Davey had a dark green suit that matched Katherine’s dress, and he smiled the whole time, sticking his tongue out at her sometimes and holding every door in sight.

Jack’s heart fucking  _ ached.  _ (But he wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t.)

Jack and Hildy danced, and it was fun enough, and they watched their classmates get drunk while they joked about their favorite shows. (See? He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t.)

Jack kissed her in the middle of the room. (He wasn’t.)

She kissed him back. (He wasn’t.)

They kissed, and then they kissed more. (He wasn’t.)

(It wasn’t as good as Davey, but he wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t.)

Katherine was dancing with Davey and a few of their other friends a little while away, and Jack whispered in her ear, “Keys.”

She slipped them to him, and he and Hildy rushed out of the building to the limo that the driver had wisely evacuated.

(Jack thought he saw him eating sushi with another driver behind the hotel.)

He kissed Hildy, and it should have been fun. It wasn’t like Davey, where it could be soft and then fast and then soft again, it was just all a rush. They laughed sometimes, and she was nervous, clearly, and the whole time, he felt like he wanted to throw up.

(He was eighteen, and there was a condom in his pocket, and he’d had nothing to drink, and the rules said you had sex with your date.)

She started pulling the straps of her dress of her shoulders, and Jack nearly gagged on air, scrambling backwards. She stopped, confused.

“Is this… sorry, did I…”

He stared at her. She had one hand out, like she was fending off a wild animal.

“I’m in love with Davey," he blurted, and he felt the world grind to a halt, waiting for the aftermath of five words that had been building up for five years.

Her mouth dropped open, just like in the movies.

The words tasted like honey to say, admitting the stupid fucking truth that he’d hated, that he might have still hated. He was in love with Davey. He’d known Davey since he was a little kid on the playground, and he was in love with him.

Oh, god.

“Are you gay?” she tried, and he was silent, not quite sure himself.

“Bi?” she tried again, and he blinked, rolling the word through his head and thinking about how it really did feel right.

“Let’s go with that for now.”

“Okay,” Hildy said, and she nodded slowly. “Good for you, man. Thanks for telling me.”

“I don’t wanna sleep with you,” Jack said, and Hildy laughed, bridging on a guffaw.

“Yeah, got that bit.”

They sat in silence for a moment. “Thank you,” Jack said, and Hildy squeezed his hand.

"You seem to have a lot going on, so I'm gonna…" She yanked her thumb towards the door.

He nodded absently, watching her leave, a poofy mess of tulle and crystals. As soon as she closed the door, she laughed, disbelieving, and walked back into the building.

Jack dragged a hand down his face, wiping lipstick off his mouth.

He was in love with David Jacobs.

His own words rang through his head for a while, then Hildy's.

Bi. Puzzle pieces clicked into place, despite him clutching onto them for so long. He liked girls. He liked boys. He loved Davey. Jesus Christ, he loved Davey.

Without even realizing it, he was leaving the limo, locking it and making his way towards the thrumming music.

The outside of the hotel was a pale gray, so any spot of color stood out boldly against it. Specifically, Davey, in his dark green suit and floral tie, standing against the wall near the door.

He’d been standing there for God knew how long, Jack realized, while Jack sat in that limo and told Hildy that he loved him. And there he was, all pretty and melancholy and waiting.

(It was narcissistic to believe he was waiting for Jack, but God, did it make Jack’s heart swell to think it.)

He felt himself walk faster, and Davey looked up at some point, smiling at the sight of him. “Jack, hi,” he said, stepping away from the wall, and Jack took the final few steps at a run, finally crashing into him and wrapping his arms around Davey with all he was worth. Davey was slow to hug him back, clearly confused, but once he did, he held Jack gently, like he was some delicate thing. Jack loved every second of it, burying his face in Davey’s chest. That Davey would hold him when he was fragile, let him be weak; he nearly broke just at the blessing of it.

They stood like that for ages until Davey slowly drew away. “Something wrong?” he asked quietly, like the empty air around them didn’t deserve to hear. Like his words were made only for Jack. 

Jack looked up at Davey, at his eyes and his freckles and his curls. At the kind downturn of his lips, the soft concern.

“Kiss me,” Jack said. In a better world, it would have sounded passionate, smoldering. Instead it was just a plea, a prayer. “Please.”

Davey did. He looped one arm around Jack’s waist and cupped his face gently with the other hand. Jack let out a happy little sigh and clutched onto Davey’s shoulders. He’d missed Davey, missed kissing him. They hadn’t for more than half a year, and Jack had been dying of it without even realizing.

Davey kissed his neck down to the collar of his dress shirt, pressed his lips to tears that Jack didn’t even notice running down his face. And it was gentle, and sweet, and kind, and everything Davey. Jack just wanted more. He wanted the sarcastic, fiery, ambitious Davey. He wanted the Davey that swore in the aisles of corner stores and pushed Jack against walls for the hell of it. Jack wanted to be more than comforted. He wanted to be wanted, to be needed, to be loved.

He kissed Davey back, fiercer than before, and Davey pulled away, only by an inch, for just a moment.

“Do you… Hildy…” Davey started, and then he sighed. His breath smelled like Tic-Tacs. He smiled faintly, his eyes sparkling just a little. “We doing what I think we are?”

Jack went on his tip-toes to kiss Davey slowly, running his hands up from his shoulders to his jaw. He pulled away just far enough to speak.

“If you’re thinking we go to the limo and complete some prom traditions, then yeah.”

Davey exhaled, soft and shaky, his smile growing wider. “You sure?”

Jack groaned and kissed Davey again, pulling at his tie. “Please.”

Davey blinked at him, and then laughed, still somewhat confused. “Fuck yeah, okay.”

The limo dropped them off one by one, all of them deciding that an after-party was off the agenda. Hildy left first, kissing Katherine right on the lips and shotting Jack and Davey finger-guns as she got out. Davey’s mouth dropped open, and he turned to Katherine, only for her to shoot him down with a blushing, “Later.”

Then it was Davey’s turn, and Jack walked him to the door.

He didn’t know what he wanted to do. Drop down on his knees and confess his love? He’d never been brave enough for that. Instead, he just hung onto Davey’s hand for as long as he could, until they got to the door.

Davey paused, his key in the lock.

“I…”

Jack stopped him with a kiss. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

Davey smiled at him, brushing his thumb across his cheekbone. “Okay.” He leaned down to kiss Jack before he turned his key and went inside his house, still the tiny thing it had always been.

Jack smiled giddily and started back towards the limo.

They never did talk about it.

They didn’t talk about it until 2019, a whole ten years later. Jack was home from ten years across the ocean, and Davey was still home after ten years of taking care of his family. 

First they yelled about it. Then Davey cried, then Jack cried. Jack explained waking up the day after prom terrified, all the hatred he’d lost for a day coming back in a wave and screaming at him from all sides; he explained having to actively fight off the urge to hate himself for years. Davey explained being in love with Jack all through high school, and kissing him because it was the closest he thought he’d ever get. Jack explained hooking up with pretty, dark-haired boys in college, trying to forget about loving Davey. Davey explained praying at temple during college, asking for God to make him stop hurting over a boy that he thought never loved him back.

They still had more explaining to do, so they did it over coffee the next day, and then the next.

Hesitant meetings and apologies turned into invites to dinner, which turned into Davey helping Jack move into a little house he’d bought three blocks away from the house Jack had grown up in.

That turned into Jack holding Davey’s hand when Esther started forgetting things, and that became Jack staying the night at Davey’s apartment at the center of town, sleeping on the couch just to make sure Davey had someone to talk to in the morning.

That morning, Jack made huevos rancheros, and Davey kissed him. And unlike all their other kisses before, that kiss ended with Jack feeling completely, totally, one-hundred-percent happy, and more than anything, like he was finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> i am begging u on my hands and knees.... if u liked this PLEASE comment on it.  
> my tumblr is @penzyroamin, i talk about writing and hadestown and being gay!!!!!! there's a pretty moodboard for this and a post that corresponds with this fic there, so please rb it!!!!!!! it really helps me get more readers <3  
> i hope you have a lovely day, thanks for reading!!!! don't forget to like and subscribe thanks gamers


End file.
